When no other thunder lizards had broken the day’s peace for perhaps five minutes, I spoke up.
“If we’re going to be spending the next few nights there, I’d rather get started now, while there’s still light.”
Timash stared at me. “Who says we’re spending the night in there?”
“It’s going to take time to build a raft, and there may be tools we can use.”
“What raft?” Harros demanded.
“What’s a raft?” Timash asked.
I started down the bank, scanning the water for any sign of a ford; they followed me perforce.
“A raft is a wooden platform that you can sail on a river. We’ve got more than enough wood to build one, if we can fell the trees. Somewhere downriver there must be another town, one with people in it.”
“Beats walking,” Harros said, but Timash was unconvinced.
“On water?”
I ignored him and concentrated on using my staff to sound the stream bottom. Finding a shallow spot that seemed to extend further than others, I stripped off my jumpsuit and boots, held them above my head, and waded in, motioning the others to follow and keeping the staff outstretched. In this way we found a path across whereon even Timash, the shortest of us, could keep his chin above water. We tried not to think of what might be swimming about our legs, but nothing bit us.
The city-side of the river proved much drier, and we set a good pace around the walls, looking for a gate, for the method of egress used by the thunder lizard was unattainable by us. Up close the metal walls were far less impressive even than I had imagined: Flakes of rust the size of my head spotted the surface like a loathsome disease. How many years had these walls stood unattended?
My companions’ thoughts traveled along the same paths—but they reached the end before mine did.
“Keryl?” Timash asked with unaccustomed shyness. “What did that thunder lizard eat before we came along?”
Suddenly the idea of carving and building a raft with our bare hands took on a new appeal—but one that lasted only a moment.
Somewhere on the other side of the wall, a woman screamed.
Chapter 26
The Dead City
As deeply ingrained as is the instinct for one’s own survival in the mind of Man, how much more deeply ingrained might it become after the passage of nearly another million years of evolution? And yet, as was now proven to my grateful eyes, the instinct of Man (or ape) to protect the weaker sex had kept pace with that most primal urge to live, so that even uncounted millennia in the future, the first thought of my companions was even as my own: to succor the helpless originator of that cry, regardless of the unknown dangers that might lie in wait for ourselves.
In short, almost at once I was sprinting along our projected path, frantically searching for a way past the wall, for it is in my nature, and my nurture, not to stand by while a woman wants for aid. And my friends, for whom I could not speak on such a matter, were right on my heels; although Harros and I quickly outdistanced Timash, it was only through lack of leg, and not of heart, that he was left behind.
The ground under my feet abruptly changed from hard mud to smooth stone, albeit so covered with dust that only the altered sounds of my boots on the ground alerted me. I stopped so suddenly that Harros almost knocked me down. Had not the wall curved so gradually that we were still in Timash’s line of sight, he doubtless would have collided with the pair of us moments later, to the detriment of all concerned.
We stood on the flagstones of a partly-closed gateway, away from which at right angles to us ran an ancient road down to the river, a road now visible only in isolated chunks of masonry. The gate itself was a marvel of engineering, for while the city wall was fully three times our own height, the gate was equally that wide at its lowest point. And as it rose, the gate became wider; what mechanism could raise it we could not see, nor would we ever know, but that it was meant to be raised and lowered was obvious by the fact that it had stopped four feet off the ground. Deep grooves in the walls where the gate had once fit showed evidence of centuries of habitation by dust and wild creatures. It was not a place I was tempted to stick my fingers.
All this we assimilated in seconds, for this was the entrance we had sought, and pausing only long enough to catch our breath (and not nearly long enough to consider the probable consequences of our actions), we ducked through the gap and emerged on the other side, inside the city.
Instantly all sound ceased.
Rarely do we stop in our daily activities to take account of the myriad subtle noises of our lives; we have no time, and were we even to try, cataloging every day’s surroundings would consume us. So we let most of the background slip by, concentrating on that which most concerns us, and the susurrations of life assume a position not unlike a sailor’s unconscious appreciation of the rhythms of the sea. That is, until they disappear.
Ahead of us lay a continuation of the gateway plaza, opening onto a wide boulevard that disappeared in the hazy distance. Grass grew in clumps through the cracked stones of the pale red pavement. On either side of the avenue deserted buildings cast long, cool shadows; we stood in one such shadow, cocking our heads, but there was no sound, nothing; like the African veldt when the king of beasts prowls his kingdom and the other animals huddle, quaking, until he passes by. At that time the silence becomes a tangible thing, stretching out long past the point of breaking. This was the silence of the prey of the thunder lizard. Whatever lived here had fled the roar of the king of beasts—but what, then, had we heard?
I motioned ahead with my staff. I had no more idea than the others where the cry had originated, save that it was on this side of the wall, back in the direction whence we had come. It seemed now a ghostly illusion; there loomed the distinct possibility we were being lured to our deaths by a cunning predator. Still the urge that had stirred my breast would not leave me, nor could I depart this necropolis until I had tried, at least, to learn the truth.
We proceeded cautiously down a narrow street that paralleled the wall, curving inward as we entered the city proper. On either side of us balconies and catwalks crowded the upper stories; as in the olden Chester of my adopted England, the populace had once upon a time conducted their business on several levels, walking from building to building above the street along the connected second-story storefronts. I shuddered irrationally; their ghosts still strolled the elevated thoroughfares, but now their evil agenda involved stalking the living—in a word, us.
Strangely enough, I could not throw the odd feeling aside. I could almost hear their voices, sibilantly whispering in the shadows and the abandoned man-made caverns about us.
I stopped, secreting myself in a doorway and motioning my companions to follow suit. I could not shake that feeling! And soon I learned why.
Out of a doorway opposite us and a little further down the street trotted a squad of ragged men, variously equipped with blunt clubs and small bundles of rope that appeared to be netting. Without speaking and in almost perfect unison they crossed the road and filed into a doorway on our side of the street, without seeing us or even looking about. Their appearance caused me to stare: Pale-skinned and hairless, their limbs exhibited a leanness bordering on the emaciated. None seemed to lack for energy—yet withal there was a quality of lifelessness about them, as if the task before them absorbed their entire focus and no other consideration was worthy of notice. More than soldierly discipline, it was utterly sinister.
None of us questioned their connection to our goal; we were not such fools as to ascribe this apparition to coincidence. Allowing a few moments’ time that we might not blunder into the patrol, I slipped out of my meager hideaway and down the road.
The trail was easy to follow; the dust inside this particular doorway was little disturbed but for the tracks of our quarry, and the shuffling of their many footsteps echoed in the high halls. I found to my surprise that light immigrated through many holes and windows, so that the pursuit was simple. Occasional
ly a gap would open in the flooring before us, but never without more than sufficient warning.
Then for the first time we heard voices ahead, their meaning twisted beyond recognition by the intervening corridors, but their tenor clear. A sudden slapping of feet on the floor, then a sharper noise followed by a short scream, cut off quickly—and an abrupt cry of defiance and victory: a woman’s voice!
A wiser man would have reconnoitered, surveyed the numbers and arms of the enemy before engagement, planned and plotted and mapped his strategy instead of barging into an unknown battle in which he had no stake nor even knew whose side was right—but that wiser man would never have been me, and in this instance he might have delayed until his objective was lost. With Timash and Harros at my heels I burst through a set of broken double doors into the first room I had seen with working artificial light, and that was fortunate because otherwise I might have doubted my own eyes—and almost certainly I would have lost my life.
At a raised dais to our left stood a lone woman—a Nuum, by her stained orange jumpsuit—armed with a thin sword. Before her and spread about were the men we had seen above—and their friends. Fully two dozen of the pale warriors filled the room, clubs and nets at the ready as if they were bearers on a safari of which the woman was the prey. Four or five bodies prone before the steps of the dais testified to her skill with the sword and explained her opponents’ hesitation in charging her. I believe they were about to do so anyway, but our arrival changed all that.
She stepped back, dropping her sword for one exhausted moment upon seeing us, but her greeting smile fell when she saw that, whomever she had expected, we were not they. But it gave her a moment, for the pale men, as one, stopped what they were doing as well and turned to face us in eerie silence. Not one face showed surprise, anger, or fear. One of the men simply motioned and the bulk of them immediately fell upon us, clubs and nets at the ready. The balance rushed the dais. For all the ferocity of their attack, none spoke, shouted, or even scowled. They were the most serene antagonists I had ever faced.
But if our enemies were lacking in drive or passion, we ourselves were not. With a cry I charged them, and the same tactics that had scattered the conservationists at the research station worked to similar effect here—save that at the research station I was intent only on escape, and I did not have a bull gorilla at my back.
Our battlefield was too small to allow swinging my staff, so I shortened my grip and used it as a polearm. The novelty of this tactic against my foes proved itself again and again, as their clubs had a shorter range and many a man found himself knocked to the floor by a solid poke in the face or belly.
I felt a club graze my arm and I turned straight into one of their nets. Flinging up the staff in front of me, I managed to catch the edge of the net and bat it aside, but it left me open to attack. Off-balance I kicked one man and literally fell out of the path of another’s club.
On the floor all legs looked alike, but since Timash’s gaudy pants were not among them, I poked and tripped with abandon. Some fell on me and tried to pinion me—much to their own harm, as I was fully as much stronger than they as I was any other Thoran, and a better shield from the pummeling of their fellows I could not have asked.
I reared up, battled my way to the opposite wall and turned to fight again with my back secure. Timash was at the center of a rising pile of bodies, holding a man by the neck in each hand. He shook them around until they went limp, then dropped them and grabbed two more. The woman had leaped down from her perch and was slashing indiscriminately, blood flying, covering over older stains on her clothes and face. I could not see Harros.
It was over within moments, the last man falling to my and Timash’s superior strength or the sword of their former prey. As it ended, Harros burst through the doorway.
“I was carried outside by their rush,” he explained. “But I chased them off.” He glanced past me, and I turned. The woman crouched behind me, her sword still ready.
“It’s all right,” I said slowly. “We came to help you.” I lay the staff on the ground and backed up a step. She glanced at us, then at the staff, straightened, and made a motion with the grip of her sword. Instantly it contracted in on itself, forming an eight-inch rod that she placed against the leg of her jumpsuit. When she removed her hand, the rod remained in place. She bent to pick up my staff.
“That was nice work; thanks. But why didn’t you just use the sword?”
I blinked. I had no idea to what she was referring, and I fear it showed in my expression. To be sure, my sudden idiocy was not entirely due to ignorance: As she pulled her fingers through her coppery hair, it became apparent even through the stains and the blood that this woman was extraordinarily beautiful.
Her features were bold without insolence, her skin a translucent olive, and her figure, obvious enough even in utilitarian Nuum uniform clothes, was modeled more on the women of my own time than the thin, boyish females of this tragic earth. I felt a stab of guilt in knowing that even Hana Wen would take a back seat to this woman in any beauty contest I might judge.
Perhaps she was used to the male reaction, because she waited for my answer what seemed many moments.
“My name’s Marella,” she said at last. If there was any more to her, she was not prepared to say. “What’s yours?”
I shook myself, hearing Timash smother a giggle behind me, and introduced us all.
A man at her feet stirred; she knelt down, unclipped her sword/club, and clipped him smartly on the side of the head.
“We’d better go. There’ll be more of them.”
At Timash’s suggestion we took refuge in one of the upper floors of a building some distance away. As he pointed out, the unique architecture of this city (whose name, it came out, was as much a mystery to Marella as ourselves) gave avenues of escape in various directions even on the second and third stories, while giving us likewise a greater field of view. I think he also relished the possibility of climbing; ever since that day we escaped the tiger spiders, he had resurrected the arboreal habits of his ancestors at every opportunity. Even Balu had thought it odd.
Practical as only a woman could be, Marella had torn shreds of cloth from the clothing of some of our late opponents and was now busily scrubbing and scraping such stains as she could from her hands and face. She had offered us some, but as we had just bathed (twice) in the river, we declined. Nor were we as greatly in need; neither Timash nor I had spilled any blood to speak of, and Harros was almost fresh.
Keeping watch from inside the window, I inquired of Marella how she had found herself in this situation.
“I was on a sky barge crossing the plain on my way home. I’m from Dure.” She paused, as if to await our reaction, but all she received was three blank stares. I understood why Timash and I failed to react, and apparently Harros was not much of a traveler himself, but Marella found us all incredible. “Hello? You know—Dure? The Island Continent—across the big water?” She shook her head. “Men…” After a moment she recollected my question and decided, whatever her personal opinion of us, civility did demand an answer.
“Anyway, I’m a force field tech on the barge. It’s called the Dark Lady. We’re ferrying some nobles home, and one of them sees this deserted city down here, so naturally, he has explore it.” She shook her head again, her opinion no less obvious for being unspoken. “Well, no sooner do we set down the schooner than this big—” she looked around at us, set her lips, and changed what she was about to say— “really big thunder lizard comes crashing out of nowhere. Of course Lord Masinto is the first one back on the schooner, screaming at everybody to shoot the thing and take off at the same time, and meanwhile the officers are trying to get everybody on board but the thunder lizard’s on their tail and so they take off and I’m still on the ground,” she finished in a rush. “I got away from the lizard okay, ‘cause he was watching the schooner (and probably laughing his ass off at Masinto), but I was looking for some water when those jokers you saw st
arted chasing me and cornered me in that basement.”
“We were outside the wall when we heard you scream,” I explained.
Her brows knit. “Did I scream?” I nodded. “Huh. Must’ve startled me.”
“I’m sure it was involuntary, and quite understandable under the circumstances,” Harros assured her. I didn’t like the tone of his voice —it struck me as rather more oily than our brief acquaintance with the lady warranted—but as she didn’t seem to take offense I let it lie. If she were a lady sailor, as I gathered, she had probably heard worse.
She ignored him, in any event, and turned the tables on me.
“So what’s your story? How come you’re out here in the middle of nowhere?”
I explained that our vehicle had broken down and we had approached the city looking for shelter. I had thought to omit our own encounter with the thunder lizard lest Marella take it as the trumped-up tale of a braggart, but Timash was all for telling it, so I let him.
When he had finished, Marella turned again to me. “That’s your idea of ‘our groundcar broke down?’ Flattened by a thunder lizard? What do you do for excitement, wrestle breen?”
“Don’t say that word!” Timash scolded. “It makes my nose itch.”
A moment later, as if on cue, Marella’s eyes became very wide, and then I smelled it too, a wet-dog pungency that I had never smelled before but knew at once:
Breen.
Chapter 27
I Am Caged
Timash, near the window, lifted his nose to sniff the air once more.
“It’s awfully faint,” he reported hesitantly. “They may not be anywhere near here; maybe they just spent the night here or something.”
Marella’s mien was grim, her baton again extended into a sword.
“I don’t care if they haven’t been here since the King’s last birthday. I don’t want to be in the same city with them.”
The Stolen Future Box Set Page 19